


One Year

by KayleeTheBrave



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2767475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KayleeTheBrave/pseuds/KayleeTheBrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not so much a fix-it fic, as an 'ease the pain slightly' fic. End game spoilers. Female Lavellan but all other details kept vague, including the extent to which they were intimate. I decided to follow suit with the game and let that be up to you.</p><p>Lavellan knows Solas is leaving, and rather than try to stop him or follow him, she wants his word that they will meet again in one year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Year

“A year,” said Lavellan simply to Solas, as he stood away from the rest of the group, after the fight with Corypheus.  
  
“A year?” He asked, brow furrowed. This was not how he expected this moment to go. None of it was, truthfully, but this _in particular_ threw him.  
  
“You're leaving,” she said, matter of factually, as though she knew more than she was letting on. As though she knew _everything._  
  
“I- yes...” he could not lie to her. _Would not._ “I'm leaving. I have to.”  
  
“I know. I don't know why, or for what, but I know you. And that's all I need to know. So I'm giving you a year to do... whatever it is. I have my own things to do here, with the Inquisition.” She spoke quickly but firmly. Decisive. Perhaps she hoped she could simply will him to agree if she was only determined enough. Or will him to return if she proved she loved him enough.  
  
“Yes. You do. That's why I-”  
  
“Stop.” She cut him off with a wave of her hand, unwilling to be reminded of how he had left things between them. “We don't have to go over that again. I've spent too long thinking about it already. But yes... In one year, in the Fade, meet me where we first kissed... because by then I'll be free and clear to leave the Inquisition in good hands, and I _will_ come find you.  
  
"Don't get me wrong, I'll also use every resource available to me from Leliana's network, and Josie's contacts, and Cullen's soldiers... but it's me who will find you. I am many things, and maybe you've been distracted by the fact that they all call me the Inquisitor, or the Herald... but first and foremost I am a hunter, and a spy, and by the Dread Wolf, I am a good one.”  
  
There was a pause when Lavellan stopped speaking, and Solas found himself distracted by the fire in her eyes. They held the passion of a lover, the confidence of someone who knows how good they are, mixed with the desperation that came from seeing someone you loved walking away, and knowing you couldn't follow.  
  
“I understand...” Solas nodded, his face solemn. He truly didn't even know if he was telling the truth, but his agreement came out before he could stop it. _If returning to her proves impossible, agreeing to return may yet prove crueler and colder even than leaving... And yet, I can't bring myself to deny her. Or deny myself._  
  
Solas started to drag his eyes away from Lavellan's and turn around, forcing himself to leave despite every cell wanting to stay, for one more minute, an hour, a day- _forever._ He hadn't taken more than a step before her voice called out to him again, and gave him pause.  
  
“Wait-” she spoke clearly, but there was a waver in it that wasn't there before. A young, desperate, strain to her voice that spoke of more vulnerability and uncertainty than she was ever willing to put on display. Solas didn't turn around. But he didn't start walking away again either. She had been so reasonable, understanding of his need to leave. He could hardly deny her one last word. So he felt, rather than heard, as she lightly approached him, every bit the perfectly silent Dalish huntress stalking her prey.  
  
She placed her hand on his elbow, unintentionally replicating the moment on the balcony that had convinced Solas to turn around and kiss her. This time he couldn't stay, couldn't give her everything she wanted. But perhaps he could give her _something._  
  
“I have... one last favour to ask...” she whispered.   
  
“Then ask it,” Solas replied, voice hoarse, attempting to hold back emotions that were long since irrevocably stirred up. “Though you should know that I cannot promise anything.”  
  
“I know,” and she did, which was why she was so unusually tentative. She believed he would insist on denying her, but she couldn't help but ask nevertheless.  
  
Solas turned, and despite mentally preparing himself to see her, he still felt as though the pained look in her eyes had stabbed him through the heart. He wrapped his arms around her, knowing it would make it that much harder to leave, but unable to face the look in her eyes any longer. Unable to see her but not touch her one final time.  
  
There was a pause before Lavellan responded, surprised that he was willing to give her a parting embrace, before clinging to him tighter than she'd ever held him before. She worried she would not be able to let him go again when the time came. Solas moved one hand to the back of her head, and the other to the small of her back, and Lavellan clutched tightly to the front of his robes, pressing herself as close to him as possible. With her eyes shut she could almost pretend it was just another intimate moment between them, if it weren't for the aching feeling in her chest and the smell and sound of destruction that came in the wake of victory, that surrounded them.  
  
“You had... a favour to ask?” Solas said eventually, a quiet whisper into her hair. He didn't want to distract from the embrace. If they just kept holding each other, time might stop and he would never have to leave. Slowly Lavellan pulled away, just slightly, enough that she had space to speak, but not far enough that she would feel the loss of contact.  
  
“Convince me,” she mumbled into his chest, a pleading whisper that shamed her being so needy, but insisted on being spoken, if this was the last time she would see him. “Kiss me and convince me that it was all real, that what we had was real-” her voice broke as she held him, tears in her eyes that she would want no one else to see.  
  
“Ma vhenan-” Solas started, horrified that she would even have to ask, before being interrupted by Lavellan pressing a swift, desperate kiss onto his lips. It was over as fast as it began. _Of course,_ thought Solas, _of course Lavellan is the one to kiss me goodbye before I could do it first. She was the one who kissed me the first time in the fade. She was always impulsive and free with her affection to me... But if this is how we part ways, it should be a kiss to remember one another by._  
  
“Ir abelas, ma vhenan,” Lavellan apologised, not looking him in the eyes. “I shouldn't have. I don't want to make this harder. I just... couldn't resist. I couldn't let you go without kissing you one last time.”  
  
“Neither can I, ma sa'lath,” murmured Solas, lifting Lavellan's chin with his hand so she looked him in the eye, before kissing her with more unrestrained passion than ever before.  
  
He was leaving so much behind, all the time and closeness and happiness they could have together was being sacrificed. For a greater good, true, but that didn't make it any easier. So he kissed her with everything he had, getting lost in the moment, trying to convey the full extent of his love. It was impossible, no words or actions could ever do that, but Blight take it all, he could try.  
  
They lost track of limbs and hands, urgently grasping at one another, bringing their bodies as close to each other as possible. They forgot they were out in the open, in the middle of a battleground, friends and soldiers alike in the field getting on with official business and assessing the aftermath of the fight. They forgot that they were dirty and sweaty, covered in smoke and dust. Perhaps if she just held him tighter she could forget that he was leaving, too.  
  
A sudden yell from one Inquisition soldier to another surprised them. The soldiers were too nearby to carry on pretending they had some semblance of privacy, so they pulled apart. Unwilling, but resigned to their parting.  
  
“Will that do, ma vhenan?” Solas asked, ghost of a smile on his face, “or should I kiss you again?”  
  
“Depends... If I keep asking you to kiss me again, you could stay forever, couldn't you?”  
  
“That would be nice,” said Solas, taking her face in one hand to wipe away a tear with his thumb, “unfortunately fate is not that kind, emma lath.”  
  
Lavellan leaned into his touch, closing her eyes to better take in how it felt to have him with her in that moment. They did not have long now. Minutes if she was lucky, seconds if she was not.  
  
“I know that too well, ma vhenan.” She responded with a sigh. “I meant what I said, you know? A year from today, I will seek you out in the Fade at Haven. Find me there and we can... I don't know... Figure out where we go from there. Maybe you could actually explain what you're doing by then. I should like to join you, if you would have me... but either way, I will have set things in motion with the Inquisition so that they will not need me any more. I wont be sticking around in a castle in the mountains where I can't do anything. And I can't go back to my clan, not permanently anyway. A visit or two would be nice-”  
  
“Ma vhenan-” Solas interrupted gently. She had been babbling, trying to extend their last moments together. But it couldn't last. He pressed his forehead against hers, and once again they closed their eyes and were silent. It was a hollow imitation of the many quiet moments they had shared in the past, and the ones they would be missing out on in the future. “I will see you again, ma vhenan. A year from today. In the fade, at the place where we first kissed.” Solas recited her request perfectly, then opened his eyes and pulled away slightly so he could take one last look at Lavellan. He wanted to commit every detail to memory. It would be a long year.  
  
“Dareth shiral, emma lath.” whispered Lavellan when Solas stepped further away from her. Their only point of contact now was their hands. It felt like she was barely holding on to a lifeline in a storm, while deadly winds threatened to make her lose her grip, and pull her into the unknown. She wanted to hold on to him forever. But it could not be. She would have to face the daunting task of rebuilding of nations anew without him.  
  
They finally let go of one another, but did not break eye contact. Lavellan did not cry. She must look stronger than she felt if she was to go back to her companions and soldiers any minute now, but her chest ached so strongly that she thought it might burst with the pain. Solas was doing no better. His usual calm and collected countenance was shaken, and his will to leave was weak, despite how strongly he knew he must. For the good of the People. For the good of Lavellan, too, even if it did not feel like it now.  
  
“Dareth, ma vhenan.” Solas responded, before finally turning around and walking away.  
  
Lavellan remained in place while she watched him retreat. She did not understand why he had to leave, or for what, she only knew that he felt he could not tell her, but that he had to go anyway. She had her own things to do. She couldn't chase after him like a child attempting to chase the hunters and abandon her own responsibilities. Not yet anyway. A year was more than enough time to get the Inquisition and her own affairs in order. It would have to be. Because if he wasn't at their meeting place in the fade one year from now, she was going after him. And she would find him too, no matter how much he didn't want to be found.

  



End file.
